Melk Prod / Marco Berrettini (CH/IT)

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Marco Berrettini revives his roots as German disco dance champion in 1978, in a performance that questions the human capacity of self-sufficiency in a time where all that is holy has ceased to exist.

After God died with Friedrich Nietzsche and after his resurrection due to the spiritual currents of the 1960s that he is “in us”, can we envisage an improvement in our spiritual lives without the existence of a God? Can our lives be profound, without reincarnation, karma, mono- or pluritheisms? Or does our environment determine our actions and thoughts?

In ifeel4 dancer and choreographer Marco Berrettini enters a mutation between dance and body. Controlled by, or controlling – or completely independent of – composer Samuel Pajands piano, and a modern version of the choirs in the Greek tragedies, he dances non stop. And leaves us pondering over the mutation between dance and body, over the strength of our expressions and how external elements can change our inner state. And vice versa.

This is our first visit by Marco Berrettini and his swiss company.

BIOS

Marco Berrettini:

Italian dancer and choreographer, Marco Berrettini was born in 1963 in Aschaffenburg, Germany. His interest in dance begins in a disco. In 1978 he won the German Disco Dance Championship. With this experience, he attended lessons in jazz dance, modern dance and classical ballet. At 17, he began his professional training as a dancer; First at the London School of Contemporary Dance, then graduated at the Folkwangschulen Essen under the direction of Hans Züllig and Pina Bausch. There, he developed his interest in the Tanztheater and began as a choreographer. As a result of his training, he tries to set up his own company in Wiesbaden.

To accompany his attempts to make a name for himself as a choreographer, Berrettini studied European Ethnology, Cultural Anthropology and Theater Sciences at Frankfurt University for two years. In 1988, he moved to France to work with the choreographer Georges Appaix and created in parallel his own pieces. In 1999 the Kampnagel of Hamburg produced its show MULTI(S)ME. Since then, Marco Berrettini has produced about 30 shows with his company. With Sturmwetter prepares for the year of Emil, he wins the ZKB prize at the Theaterspektakel in Zürich.

Since 2004 he has created, among otherdance-related works, No Paraderan, * Melk Prod. Goes to New Orleans (2007), iFeel (2009), iFeel2 (2012), iFeel3 (2016) and iFeel4 (2018). He is currently working on his next creation Body World Trip, which will premiere the 7th of February 2018 at the Galpon theatre, Geneva.

The activity of Marco Berrettini extends from performance in a museum to collaboration with filmmakers, from installations with contemporary artists to having dinner with famous people who do not know him.

SUMMER MUSIC

SUMMER MUSIC is a group of Electro-Pop and experimental music. The group consists of Samuel Pajand, composer, singer, arranger and sound technician and Marco Berrettini, composer, singer and arranger. They met through the creations of the dance company *MELK PROD., of which Marco Berrettini is the artistic director and Samuel Pajand the composer and sound-technician.

SUMMER MUSIC was born on the summer’s day in 2009. Marco Berrettini and Samuel Pajand are seated at the terrace of a pizzeria in Montpellier when Marco receives a call: he is offered a performance in November as part of the new Festival at Center Georges Pompidou. Marco did not touch a musical instrument for more than 10 years. He answers the person on the phone:

Marco: … Can it take the form of a concert?
The person on the phone (Xavier Boussiron): Yes … it can take the form you want.
Marco to Samuel: Do you fancy to make a concert in Beaubourg with me?
Samuel: Yes.
Marco to Xavier: Can I invite a friend?

This is how SUMMER MUSIC was born. Two years later, Marco tried to integrate SUMMER MUSIC into his choreographic piece “Si, Viaggiare”, but he did not foresee any specific time for music and only the song “Esfahan” remained. For “iFeel2”, SUMMER MUSIC finally made it to create the entire soundtrack of the piece. With iFeel3 and iFeel4, Marco Berrettini and Samuel Pajand reiterates their musical adventure, adding to it the fact that the soundtracks of these recent shows are performed live.